Russia Develops Spaceship With Nuclear Engine

Matt_dk writes "The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday. 'The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,' Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy. He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars."

Comments

Re:Sure Russia may not be able to afford it

[demachina]

"What the US needs to get back into the space race is a good old fashioned nose tweaking."

It doesn't seem to be working on the good ole economy front. China is running massive trade surpluses with the U.S., are taking all our jobs, and are seizing control of many of the world's raw materials. If there were any competitive fire left in America's belly it should have surfaced already. You can't really do another Apollo or compete in another space race when you are running trillion dollar trade and budget deficits, and mired in several pointless wars that are consuming what resources aren't going to health care and social security. During the 60's the US was still flush with economic success in the wake of World War II when the rest of the world had been flattened.

The U.S. is starting to more closely resemble an early version of Great Britain, which having lost its empire in World War II and the pounds status as global reserve currency is now mired in debt and can't even support its vastly diminished military or pay its civil servants.